Auburn policeman's death inspires novel

AUBURN — On Jan. 1, 1986, author Tom Lukas lost his older brother, Auburn Police Patrolman Stephen A. Lukas, the first local police officer killed in the line of duty.

Mr. Lukas has just released his first novel, "Special Operations," a dark thriller that reads something like a well-researched Dan Brown novel, drawing the reader in with a mysterious set of clues blending Judeo-Christian, ancient Greek and South American religious myth and historical fact. This is not a whodunit so much as a why-it-was-done and who's next?

The villain, or hero, depending on perspective, is The Illuminator, who carries out, with horrifying precision, the extreme punishments many secretly wish for pedophiles and other heinous monsters among us — an eye for an eye, an itch for an itch.

The reader is left to decide whether to condemn or cheer the crimes, as when child-killer Jeffrey Dahmer was killed by an inmate wielding a prison toilet seat.

Even police detective hero Nick Giaccone is somewhat conflicted, though he starts out believing himself to be the old-fashioned cop who solves crimes and finds criminals.

Speaking from his home in Seattle, Mr. Lukas said, "My villain, The Illuminator, is a messenger who delivers atonement for the poison fog of survivor's guilt. If 'Special Operations' is remotely autobiographical, to write it helped me sort out my own survivor's guilt related to the way Stephen died."

Patrolman Lukas was 25 when he died in a car crash while responding to an emergency call early New Year's Day, just a week after completing his one-year probationary period on the police force. Each year on the anniversary of his death, members of the Auburn Police Association lay a memorial wreath on his grave in Hillside Cemetery. They also give an annual college scholarship to a graduating Auburn High School student in his memory.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of each copy of "Special Operations" will go to support that scholarship.

Mr. Lukas said he had no idea he even had survivor's guilt until he lived in New York City from 1997 to 2004.

"Just prior to 9/11, my office window at the Wall Street Journal looked directly at the World Trade Center South Tower, where each morning I would get off the subway," he said.

On Sept. 11, 2001, he was in Italy after changing consulting jobs to an office in Times Square.

"I'll never forget walking down to ground zero during the days after my return — feeling guilty I had somehow been off my post. Really, what was I going to do … completely irrational," he said.

Over the weeks and months that followed, he saw the pictures of the firefighters and police who had not survived.

"There are many Catholic churches in Manhattan — but only so many — so it took about two years to get through all the funerals. These were big, impressive dress blues funerals like the one the Auburn Police Department put on for my brother Stephen that so comforted my family, my mother and my father. It's an incredible ritual, the police honor guard funeral, one that's filled with dignity."

For many months, he heard ritual bagpipes and saw "perfect columns of spit-shined police officers in their dress blues giving one of their brothers a proper send-off. So many losses."

He said this helped him appreciate "the brotherhood that watches over Stephen's memory, and that gave him such a lovely send-off. That pride from Jan. 1, 1986, sets in deeper every year to offset a rather unusual meaning New Year's Day carries."

A visit to Auburn years later to witness the dedication of the town's new police station in his brother's memory changed Mr. Lukas' life.

"That trip to Auburn proved transformational. I'd been seeing police honor guard culture from the sidelines, yet deeply grieving Steve while walking the streets of New York — in a sense knowing this one was also not my fight. To see (former local police officer) Carl Westerman and feel the welcome at the Auburn Police Department was like a miracle, because I found the locus of what was happening."

He decided it was time to share what he'd learned about grief and forgiveness, "even when there is no real basis for blame. The thinking grief can bring is like that: irrational, magical, mystical. It's normal to want to be the avenger, the hero, the restorer. Writing fiction is the only way to share the magic."

He started sharing the magic through writing "Special Operations," which he said, "can apply to everyone, everywhere."

The setting for his book is in fictional Goddard, Mass., just south of Worcester. The town had suffered terrible loss with the death of rookie Police Officer Jim Stevens, who died on a New Year's morning, and suicide of Brian Shockly. Both were buried in Hillside Cemetery.

The book says, "Jim's death had been explained away in the style townspeople could live with. Simple. A fatal squad car wreck. No questions asked."

"Special Operations" has already had an impact. Local businessman Joseph T. Martin, president of Auburn Youth and Family Services and friend of Mr. Lukas, said he received the book last week and planned to read it slowly.

"I got it on Monday and finished it on Wednesday. I couldn't put it down. He nailed this," he said.

The book has been endorsed by the board of directors of malesurvivor.org, an organization dedicated to the prevention, healing and elimination of all forms of sexual victimization of boys and men. Mr. Lukas has been invited to speak at the organization's international conference in New York City in October.

He also plans a cross-country tour to promote his book, and hopes to visit Auburn in early August.

Fellow author Mike Lew wrote, "Tom Lukas is an extraordinary writer. This book is well-researched, erudite, and, yes, thrilling. What an imagination! It is also physically beautiful — artistic."

Mr. Lukas lives in Seattle with his wife, Yannette, a native of Colombia and graduate student in social work. She served seven years as a gang intervention and addiction counselor for a Seattle nonprofit organization. Her goal is to aid rural farmers displaced by civil war in Colombia.

"Special Operations" is available at amazon.com for $4.99 in Kindle, or $13.33 in paperback. Visit spycarbooks.com for information on the novel or a sequel Mr. Lukas is writing.